The Scarecrow's Example
by Orangey10
Summary: Sasuke is captured by Kakashi while training with Madara, and soon realises that his former teacher is just as determined as Naruto to see Sasuke change his ways.


**Another odd drabble that came to me in an equally odd time. -O10**

Sasuke Uchiha had just finished training – sword satisfyingly shoved in scabbard, sweaty hair hanging in the vision of the glowing red Sharingans. He closed them for a minute, breathing in the charred air that the trees, burnt by Chidoris, emitted. In his mind he envisioned Itachi smiling – his special, 'we're equal' smile that he used to do whenever Sasuke managed to catch up with him on the street when he went to do missions. Just as quickly as it came he banished the thought and exhaled just in time for a hand to roughly clamp itself on his mouth and nose.

He made a sharp intake of breath at the leather feel of Madara's gloves, and, irritated, launched a Chidori backwards. The ninja faded out before Sasuke cursed as he felt an unfamiliar substance in his system cloud his vision. _Poison._

He wheeled around, vision becoming darker by the second, and used the last vestiges of his also diminishing chakra to focus in on his opponent. Madara stood nonchalantly, staring down at Sasuke, whose knees were starting to buckle, and sighed as Sasuke was forcibly pulled under the ground.

Sasuke grunted as his eyes opened and found himself bound by a wire to a large boulder. The huge cave-like structure hid his eyes from where he was being held captive, and he could feel his chakra being continually sapped by the wire if it got past a certain level. The damned ninja had also taken all his weapons, and there were no stones nearby to use.

Suddenly a fire was lit, and he saw the face of his captor for the first time, inspecting his sword and twirling it round from side to side.

"You're not the type that'd like being lectured, so …"

Kakashi's one eye gazed calmly at the glare that Sasuke's two eyes now emitted.

"I suppose Naruto's here as well? Sakura?" he spat, looking gingerly around, the wire inhibiting his movement.

"I didn't tell them where I was going," he gently said back. Sasuke grunted, slightly surprised at this response, then started to assess the situation. As if Kakashi had read his mind, however, he said, "This is a cave where ANBU interrogated its criminals. Or tortured, whichever way you want to read it."

Sasuke's eyebrows twitched – Kakashi was still playing it easy around him. The son of a …

"Not that you could use that information in any way against Konoha, as usage of this site has been discontinued," Kakashi's one visible eye curled upward.

Sasuke grunted. He had to admit that that was more like him.

"You're either going to try to kill me – or you're going to try and preach to me about revenge, and how it's not the way to go," Sasuke sneered. Kakashi, the bastard that he was, didn't even react to what he said, and instead ran his hands down the Kusanagi, admiring the way it could clearly handle lightning chakra. Something about the way he completely ignored him and instead focussed on his katana irked him, and after 10 minutes, he shouted, "Are you _deaf?_"

"Clearly not. No need to shout in a small cave. I'm guessing what you meant to say was 'what are you going to do?'"

"I already asked that!"

"Did you? Oh, I must have been miles away." Sasuke seethed, furious that in such a situation where his former teacher had found a way to capture him that he was not milking the situation for all it was worth. Kakashi suddenly faced him, and put the sword down beside the boulder which he was sitting on.

"I'm holding you here until ANBU reinforcements arrive and take you to Konoha, where you will be put under solitary confinement, visited only by either me or Morino Ibiki. I take it you remember who he is?" A glint of what could only be described as danger entered his one exposed eye.

The noise coming from Sasuke's mouth started out as a chuckle, then gradually increased in volume and insanity, ending in a crazed bellow of incredulous laughter, which reverberated throughout the cave.

"You haven't changed at all, Kakashi – underestimating me like that. You think I can so easily submit to physical pain because of my age?" He cackled a few moments more while the gaze in Kakashi's eye hardened. "I'm not like those weaklings I had to work with before. I'd never submit to physical torture when I've been through so much _more_!" he shouted at the Jounin, who was tempted to duck just in case spittle went his way.

Kakashi sighed. "Maybe you're right. Maybe putting you top of Ibiki's waiting list wasn't really taking you for what you can handle. Maybe the consideration that your chances of giving in to torture and not killing yourself later, based on the statistics of Konoha ninja being next to nothing is just taking your presence for granted." Sasuke noticed that Kakashi's gaze had turned into a glare, something which he had never seen before.

All the better if he could snap that fast and become off-guard.

"I applaud you, Kakashi, that you were able to trick Madara and come from under the ground. The poison, however, was just coincidence. Consider yourself lucky."

If Sasuke could see under his mask, he would have seen a very wry smile. "Actually, Sasuke, I'll consider myself smug, as you did exactly what I'd hope you to do." Sasuke's strangled gasp caught in his throat as Kakashi pointed towards the Akatsuki cloak, gloves, and a small vial of poison.

"You haven't changed at all, Sasuke," Kakashi sneered for the first time, even if it was to imitate his former student. "Whatever happened to "A ninja reads underneath the underneath"?" Sasuke in a bout of fury lashed against his bounds but with a quick seal, the wires were tightened even further.

"You should thank the Uchiha whose eye you took for saving your skin." Kakashi noticeably flinched this time, and Sasuke's grin became wider as he pushed Kakashi further.

"I thank him whenever I can," he said quietly. "You should be thanking me for sparing your life in the first place. Though I'm not sure how you'll feel in Ibiki's hands this time tomorrow," his voice recovered.

"I'll …" Sasuke coughed from exhaustion before speaking again. "I'd like to test your statistic."

"Even if only one recorded person has emerged from being tortured in any country without killing themselves and without revealing any secrets?"

"Konoha ninja are weaklings," he said with many degrees of conviction in his voice. "Who was the one?"

"The ANBU are coming in about an hour – I'd suggest you to make yourself comfortable until they arrive, as soon as you're with them, life is not going to look so pretty," Kakashi replied.

"I'd like to know who I'm up against – and how easy he'll be to break once I'm done," he enunciated each vowel, each consonant with painstaking clarity, as each word brought Kakashi home to the fact that Sasuke intended to destroy everything and everyone of Konoha. He suddenly felt himself at the brink, as if saying the name of the man that Kakashi knew very well, the one that had been submitted to extensive torture when he was 19 in Grass Country and had barely come back alive and well would have his fate sealed if he revealed his identity.

Oh well.

"It's me," Kakashi said matter-of-factly, as Sasuke's eyes widened. "And I'll have you know that if you get within a kilometre of the Konoha boundaries with anything other than reconciliation in mind, I'll personally see you dead."

Sasuke was definitely surprised at his former sensei's harsh tone, and he was suddenly brought back to the time in Wave Country, on their first proper mission where he had protected him, and Naruto, and Sakura, and said he would die for them if need be. Then he remembered where he was, and he snidely chuckled once more.

"Do you remember when I had you like this 3 years ago?" Kakashi interrupted.

Sasuke reluctantly nodded. "Do you remember what I said back then?"

_Quit with revenge. In this line of work … I've seen just how bad guys like you can get – in the end, those who tasted revenge were not satisfied … it ended in tragedy. You'll only hurt and suffer more. Even if you are successful in your revenge, all you'll be left with is emptiness._

"But you don't know what it's like … " Sasuke muttered venomously.

_What if I were to kill the one you love most? How far would you stray from what you just said? I can make you feel true pain._

"How do you know?" Kakashi said a bit more coldly than he had intended.

_That might work … but unfortunately, for me, no such person exists. Those people have already been killed. _

"How exactly did you feel after you killed Itachi?" Kakashi clinically asked Sasuke, as if he were filling out a questionnaire.

"I felt … happy. More than you could ever feel -"

"Liar." Kakashi's reply hit him like a cold punch in the face as he was forced to confront the time when Madara had told him the truth, that … Itachi wanted to be killed. Even though he was innocent. "Madara told us what happened. I can't help thinking that you didn't take me seriously," Kakashi said, narrowing his eyes.

A reflection from the fire lit in the middle of the cave seemed to be shown in Sasuke's eyes this time. "Itachi was wronged by the Konoha elders. The people of Konoha laughed at his sacrifice. His loss. My loss!" he yelled. Kakashi's eyes closed and sighed, half-irritably and half-sadly. Back to square one.

"I suppose if I tried to console you with tales of ninja that had suffered much worse fates at childhood than you, it wouldn't really stop you spouting on, would it? So, I suppose …" he seemed to be turning over a decision in his mind as Sasuke glared at him.

He suddenly seemed to decide, and reached in his pouch for something that Sasuke heard could jangle. He slowly pulled out a chain necklace with ninja identification tags, expertly spreading the tags across his two gloved hands.

"These are the people close to me that have been killed," he said without a trace of emotion in his voice.

Sasuke counted at least ten before Kakashi took it back, stuffing it in his pouch with a degree of reverence.

"Revenge is not the best action you could take. It could even be said to be the worst thing you could do."

"How the hell should you know…" Sasuke began quietly.

"Sasuke, calm down."

"How the _fuck_ should you know …" Sasuke growled fiercely, before he unexpectedly got interrupted.

"I've been there!" Kakashi shouted with as much ferocity if not more. "I've succeeded in revenge, Sasuke, just in case you haven't sussed that one out just yet."

"I can tell you must have screwed up with it in some way, otherwise you wouldn't be _in my face._" Sasuke said with a hint of revulsion. Kakashi made a derisive snort, as if to say 'bite me.'

"You didn't feel happy when you killed Itachi. You felt broken. And because you didn't feel your desire for revenge had been quenched, you're now directing that towards Konoha."

"That's not what happened! That's not …" Sasuke said in a dangerously low tone of voice.

"Successful revenge does not absolve your actions that got yourself needing revenge in the first place." Kakashi's voice had a hint of quiet desperation, both to try and bring Sasuke back to reality and remembering when he himself had realised this. "It does _not_ bring them back, no matter what you do!"

"Shut up, shut up, just … shut the …" Sasuke's tone was quieter, but laced with venom.

"Then bring me back my father."

Sasuke's arms became limp as he remembered what he had said in front of Kakashi and Sakura two weeks before.

"Bring me back my mother. My clan. My ANBU squad. Asuma. My sensei! Obito! Rin! If you can bring back my life, Sasuke, then rest assured I'll shut up," he spat, but quietly, only just becoming aware of how much he had potentially revealed.

A few tense moments passed before Sasuke's head flicked up. "My ninja tag was on your chain …"

"Yes. You're lost from the village," he tersely said. "It's the only evidence that exists that says you used to be a Konoha ninja."

"Shouldn't that belong to Naruto?" Sasuke said, meaning to be snide, but not quite achieving that.

Kakashi smiled. "Naruto's got a lot more going for him than I ever had. I'm keeping this until you return to the village."

Sasuke closed his eyes. "You seem pretty sure."

"If Naruto's sure, I'm sure," Kakashi admitted. He, after a while, got up to survey the night air, leaving Sasuke to stare at the fire.

"Did you resisting torture get your loved ones killed?"

"My business, not yours."

Sasuke realised that even with his limited chakra usage, he could sense no one in the night air save for Kakashi.

"You bluffed. The ANBU aren't coming." Kakashi pulled down his mask briefly to put two fingers in his mouth and whistle with a deafening pitch. Pulling up his mask once more, he returned to the cave.

"Now they are," he smiled. "You stay here while I wait for them. I'll know if you tried anything, don't forget."

Sasuke, after he was sure he was alone, sunk his head downward.

_I'm sorry Sasuke. This'll be the last time._

His shoulders shook from the bitter tears that dripped down from his eyes screwed shut to the rocks below, darkening them slightly.

As Kakashi heard the muffled sobs, he idly yet tenderly remembered Rin's smile and how her face felt when she was dead in front of him.


End file.
